Archive for February, 2009

For the long President’s Day weekend the family decided to take a trip to visit Death Valley National Park in California. We knew we’d visit the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (Badwater Basin, 282 ft. below sea level) but we also wanted a Cheeseburger Summit. A quick look through the Summitcheese database identified Mars Hill with a summit at 220 feet below sea level. That was our target.

Mars Hill was named for its resemblance to the photos returned by Viking 1 of the Martian surface as well as its role in test of a prototype for a Russian Mars lander. Look at the similarity between the Viking 1 landing site and Mars Hill below.

We set out Saturday morning for Death Valley. After 9+ hours of driving we arrived at the Park and proceeded right past our hotel (we’re all hungry for Cheeseburgers!) bound for Mars Hill. It’s located on Badwater Road, a few miles south of Furnace Creek – right at the intersection with the Artist’s Palette loop. It’s not a tall peak but is obvious because it’s the only surface covered with black rocks. We pulled the car over at the base of the climb. By the time I pulled the burgers out of the cooler the kids were over the summit and running down the other side of the hill. A short forty seconds later we all regrouped at the summit for the burgers. A good beginning to a family vacation!

At 3723′, Balsam Lake Mountain is the 17th highest of New York’s Catskill Mountains. Since the trail starts at 2600′ and follows the old fire observer’s road to the summit, it’s a fairly gradual 1100′ gain over three miles.

I tagged along on a Schenectady ADK outing today to Balsam Lake, and it was even easier than we expected. The trail was well-packed, temperatures were in the lower 20s, and skies were a brilliant blue. It took us a little over 2 hours to reach the summit and its fire tower, where I claimed another NY summit by downing a cheeseburger.

The summit clearing is surrounded by trees, and there is no view without climbing the tower steps. The cabin on top is locked, but the views from the highest landing were excellent today, with numerous other Catskill peaks visible in many directions. It was also extremely windy up there, so I didn’t tarry long. The best views were directly into the sun, so any pictures would have dubious success, but the twin balsam covered peaks of Doubletop (3860′) can be seen in this shot. That peak’s cheeseburger will wait for another day.

After eating a quick lunch, we headed down and back to the cars, taking only a little over an hour, and started on the long-ish drive home.

Today was the first near spring-like day we have had this year in the area. Highs were in the low 60’s and the sunshine was brilliant in a cloudless sky. Dug Mountain is the highest point in Whitfield County Georgia. It lies in the Chattahoochee National Forest and can be reached via the Pinhoti Trail. The
closest access to the summit is located north of the summit where the Pinhoti crosses Dug Gap Mtn Road. There is a pulloff there which will accommodate 3-4 cars and the hike is about a mile round trip from parking to the summit. Parking is at 1,440 feet and the summit is at 1,814 feet for a gain of roughly 374 feet in elevation. My wife (&wife) made the walk to the top with me to enjoy her first summit cheeseburger experience. We didn’t know it until we were on the way up, but there was a mountain bike race today along the Pinhoti Trail, so we had to be wary of the bikers as well as the other usual hikers on the trail. This portion of the trail utilizes a National Forest gravel road which also gives access to the myriad of communication towers at the summit, so there was plenty of room for us all. At the top, I broke out two more Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy’s and again, they were quite tasty. I can now rank the fast-food cheeseburgers based on my previous attempts.

Here goes:

#1 Wendy’s Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. Not only does it contain the requisite bun, meat patty of mammalian origin, and a slice of cheese; it is loaded with onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and bacon! It has a conservative dollop of mayo to hold it all together and a waxed paper wrap to keep it intact inside the backpack. All of this for only 99 cents.

#2 McDonalds Regular Cheeseburger. This offering runs a close second. It also contains the requisite bun, meat patty of mammalian origin, and a slice of cheese. It has only onions, pickles, and ketchup added, and is also wrapped in waxed paper for ease of transport.

#3 Cheese Krystal. This one has the requisite bun, meat patty of mammalian origin, and a slice of cheese. It has only onions, a pickle, and mustard added, but is in an open-end box. This requires another method of containment. One advantage of the Krystal is its small size, but the lower bun half always seems to get soggy. And let’s face it, cold soggy bun goo isn’t at all appetizing.

#4 Sonic Jr. Cheeseburger. This offering also contains the requisite bun and a slice of cheese, but a meat patty of mammalian origin is questionable, at best. Honestly, I don’t remember what it had on it other than the requirements, as my focus was getting it down. It was wrapped in waxed paper, which in hindsight, might have tasted better than the cheeseburger.

After we finished off our cheeseburgers and most of our water, we headed back down the slope, ever wary of the mountain bikers. I dropped &wife off at the yarn store while I continued my tour of Whitfield County.

Today was the first near spring-like day we have had this year in the area. Highs were in the low 60’s and the sunshine was brilliant in a cloudless sky. Rocky Face Mountain is the third highest point in Whitfield County Georgia. The summit can be reached by the George Disney trail, named in honor of a Civil War soldier buried on the mountain. A marker was erected in 1912 at his gravesite. The trailhead is located at the back of a parking lot behind the First Church of the Nazarene on US Hwy 41 in Rocky Face, GA, which is north of the summit. The hike is approximately 2 miles round trip from parking. It has one bench on which to take a break from the climb and a couple of overlooks revealing open views into the valley to the northwest. It is a very steep trail, with surprisingly few switchbacks. Parking is at 843 feet and the summit is at 1,581 feet for a gain of roughly 738 feet in elevation. There are no fire or communication towers on the summit, just wonderfully natural terrain perfect for a mini picnic of a cheeseburger. Today’s selection was a different one; a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy’s. I must say that this is much better than I expected. It was very good. Could it be a fluke? We will see, won’t we…

We are 4 geocaching womengirls and Thursday is our Caching day.Cbianca, Mrsblueman, mtncachers and SnoopDoggyDee. We’ve been called the desperate cachewives, the wild geowomen, and the geotrio which actually is now the geoquad but that doesn’t sound so good so we dropped that!

Today is mrsblueman’s birthday and she wanted to hike out and find a cache on all of ours “to do” list. Barking Dogs on a Mission. This is a round trip hike of around 5 miles. Knowing that we will cross Logan Point we decide to make it a cheeseburger summit. Two from our group were not able to make the Wade Mountain “Chesseburger” event so we thought it would be fun to have a girl’s summit cheeseburger. It was 8:30AM and 17 degrees when we bought a sackful at Krystals.Bundled up and the only ones on the trail, we made our summit around 10:30 and after coaxing my dog, Jack, up on the rock we passed out the cheeseburgers and took photos.

This was a day of many firsts. First Summit Cheeseburger for mrsbluman and mtncachers. Another first for Mrsblueman; she has never eaten Krystals, never had a slider before! Another first, Jack is the first canine participant in the Summit Cheeseburger, well at least in Alabama. I would also venture to say he holds the record for the fastest cheeseburger eaten on a summit in the entire world!! It took the quick camera skills of cbianca to snap a picture of him eating. He is fast!

12 cheeseburgers and a free apple turnover were consumed by 4 women and a dog on Logan Point Summit. Only we know how many Jack ate but we did meet the requirements, well at least if Krystals are made of real beef.

All in all a great day on the mountain and hopefully a memorable birthday for Mrsblueman.

It appears that summitting cheesburgers is gaining momentum in the heart of Dixie! On Saturday, January 31, 2009 a group of 21 geocachers banded together to climb Wade Mountain on the north end of Huntsville, AL in Madison County. I had turned cheeseburger summiting into a geocache event ( http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=d1fd278d-0ab7-42b0-8136-5d66eea5ac94&log=y&decrypt=) and that interested a few nuts! For those taking the most direct route up and back it was a little over five miles round trip, with a change in elevation of about 750′ . For those who could not turn down the opportunity to find just one more cache, well that group made this a 7+ mile extraveganza. We did break up and come up in groups. The first group to the top were our summit chefs(Keymaker and Vesole), who packed campstove and suppply to make their own burger up top! Later came ClarkBowman and The_Rebel, then David, ParrGolf, and Rick618. The rest of us arrived in one big wave including VolCachers, ToisRUs, cbianca, chrisiris, HaresEar, KD4DCE, momentforus, snoopy dog dee, wayne_etc, and myself….. Heres’s a few pictures of the whole affair!